Snail Infestation Help Plz !

[luckyliam13]

hey guys ive got a big snail problem atm in my 2 foot bristle nose tank. they arnt eating my plants they just suck all the algue of genrally this would be fine but since ive got babies in the tank atm they are competing for food. i picked 100 out atleast today and overturned my bog wood and found at least another 100 any advice on getting rid of the little pests would be grand ty.

 

[Inchworm]

Hi luckyliam13

I've been having the same problem with snails. Recently I've tried adding 10 assassin snails to one of my 55 gallon tanks that were overrun this way. They have done a good job killing the adult snails and I don't think there will be many more of them. It remails to be seen how they will do with the large number of tiny snails that are still in the gravel. I'm not sure if they can eat the pests while they are still very young or if they will have to grow up a bit first.

Here's a picture so you can see the results of their work. The brown spots are dead snail shells.

 

[luckyliam13]

awsome fight snails with snails ill look into it thanks heaps

 

[luckyliam13]

hey thanks for the tip! looks like they are gona be the go are they readily available at aquariums?? and do you feed yours or do they just eat snails? ty heaps

 

[walkers101]

you can buy them in the classified section easy enough

 

[mike_980]

Tou could try the good old cucumber trick, leave some cucumber underniether a tuperware box or something on the aquarium floor overnight and they will all flock to it you can just pick them out in seconds then! or place the cucumber on something which you can just lift out when its full of snails a flat piece of plastic would be perfect. You might have to improvise a design though your self because your BN will want the cucumber so make sure only the snails can get it

do this a couple of times a couple of days apart and you should be on top of the job

 

[spectrum]

I think you need try get rid of the empty shells once the snails are dead though becuase I believe they break down, releasing calcium and raising hardness and pH, which can be a bad thing. (I THINK)

 

[walkers101]

another way clip a leaf of lettuce over night in the morning there will be tons of them on it

 

[ian]

you'd need a hell of a lot of snail shells to raise you calcium.

get a couple of assasins and don't feed the fish for a couple of days, you will see the snail population boom if you over feed.

 

[nurglespuss]

Or a couple of hungry loaches... or trapping is good.

 

[luckyliam13]

hey guys traping is working slowly i got a small spice container with a shaker lid i put spinich in there and cought a few whats the best bait that my bristle noses wont eat??

 

[Dinky Stig]

I like snails, they're good at cleaning up and stray detritus, when they become a problem it is usually a sign that there is too much detritus, decaying food etc at the bottom of the tank, you can either improve the circulation of the tank, use a gravel vacuum cleaner to remove any muck, or you can cut back on food, fish do not need feeding daily as the manufacturers have us believe, I tend to feed my fish every 2-3 days, I don't have any problems with snails, detritus or algae etc.

For removing snails you can place a piece of cucumber in the tank at night and then remove it in the morning, hopefully it wil, have attracted the snails and you can remove a fair few at a time, there are assassin snails too which have already been mentioned, although they only average 2 snails per week, if you have enough of them they can clean up an infestation pretty quickly, but I prefer to crush them and feed them to my fish.

 

[luckyliam13]

i have cut back the feeding slightly and am persuing the traping daily with cucumber in a spice shaker this seems to be working very well snails have all but disapeared however baby BN keep getting in the trap which is a pain because i have to keep getting them out

thanks for all your help

kind regards liam m